by K. C. May
He walked upstream, hoping to come upon another village untouched by whatever had ravaged this one. Chances were good this wasn’t the beyonders’ realm. He couldn’t imagine vicious monsters living in villages. Most of them had strange appendages that weren’t well-suited to using tools. Building huts would be difficult at best.
He heard the snap of a twig and stopped, not wanting to give away his presence. He pulled on his leather glove, in case he needed to fight. Someone was approaching, humming softly as if unaware of Gavin’s presence. Though the sword didn’t whisper its warning in his mind, he drew it quietly and hid behind a tree until he got a good look at whoever — or whatever — it was. Soon it came into view — a being clearly not human but standing upright as one. Golden-brown ears, triangular like those of a terrier, sat high on its head. It was almost as tall as Gavin with long arms and legs and a graceful neck, all covered with short golden-brown fur. It wore a patched beige loincloth around its hips. The mismatched sandals on its feet were haggard and torn.
Gavin watched, mesmerized by the creature. It picked nuts from the lowest branches of a tree and placed them into the brown sack hanging from its shoulder.
Then it saw him and froze. Its ears lay flat on its head, and it ducked deferentially like a dog before its master. “A human?” Gavin would have sworn he heard the words in his mind, while with his ears he heard clicks and whistles. Its round, orange eyes drooped sadly beneath a wrinkled brow. It didn’t look like any beyonder Gavin had ever seen, and he didn’t think there was such thing as a submissive one.
“Do you understand me, Emtor? I mean no harm.”
Again, the creature emitted whistles and clicks, but Gavin understood it as though it had spoken his language. King Arek’s magic must have been at work here. He knew no other way to explain it.
“Yes. I understand.” Gavin examined the creature’s haze. What he saw there amazed him. Although he was still learning to interpret the colors and patterns in the hazes, he knew this creature had nothing but warm regard for Gavin, though it was understandably wary. Its haze showed a gentle and submissive nature. Even the kindliest and most devout clerics he’d examined at home harbored some kind of anger or jealousy or secret perversion. This creature was the purest being he’d ever encountered. He resheathed his weapon. “Who are you?”
“I’m called Bahn. You’re human, yes? You look like the humans of legend. Are you the champion?” Its eyes changed from orange to green, and its wide mouth, stretched across a short snout, opened in a smile. Something about the creature made it seem male, despite its soft, warm air.
“What champion?” Gavin asked.
“Ronor Kinshield.”
Gavin jerked in surprise. “I’m Gavin Kinshield. How do you know Ronor?”
From the way Bahn limped forward, it was clear that his right leg had once been injured. The gatherer’s sack shifted back and forth with each step. “Everyone knows the story of Arek, the Wayfarer King, Emtor. We have many stories about him and his champion.”
“Why do you keep calling me Emtor?”
“Yes.” Bahn bowed deeply, bending even his knees. “You’re a most honored guest. That’s the meaning of Emtor. Do you mean to close the gaps?”
“You mean the tears the beyonders come through?”
“Yes. The dark ones have destroyed many of our villages and upset the balance in our realm.”
“Well, truth be told, I came here by accident, but closing the rift is my goal.”
“Ah, then you’ve come for the Runes of Carthis.”
Surprised, Gavin said, “Yeh. A Rune o’Summoning to be exact.” He needed the rune to summon Ritol to its own realm. That was how King Arek had planned to do it before his plan had drastically changed. “I can’t close the rift without it.”
Bahn’s face lit up. “My complement agrees to help you, Emtor. She asks you to come with me.” He began to limp back the way he’d come, then beckoned Gavin with a wave.
“What complement?” He looked around but didn’t see anyone. “There’s no one here.”
“She is the one born with me to balance the Is. Come, Emtor. Please. This way.”
With a shrug, Gavin caught up with Bahn as he led the way along a narrow trail beside the creek. Although Gavin was an inch or two taller, his guide had longer legs and moved more swiftly despite his injury. Gavin had to walk briskly to match Bahn’s gait. “How did your complement ask me to come with you if she isn’t here?”
“Complements can speak to each other through our thoughts. Wherever I am, she is always present in my thoughts. It’s how we balance each other.”
“So she’s your twin?”
“No, Emtor,” Bahn said as he limped along. “We were born to different parents. She’s my complement.”
Gavin nodded. “She’s your wife, then.”
Bahn emitted a high-pitched warble that Gavin took to be a laugh, though there was no contempt in it. “Not wife. Complement. She tells me your realm has nothing like it. I don’t know how to describe it so you’ll understand.”
“Try.”
As they approached the face of a large hill that in Gavin’s realm belonged to the foothills of the Superstitions, the woods thickened. Around them, birds twittered and small rodents rustled the forest litter as they darted to safety. Bahn lifted a low-hanging branch, stepped under it and held it for Gavin. “Within you is both darkness and light. You sometimes struggle to keep darkness from overpowering your thoughts and actions, yes?”
“Sometimes.”
“And sometimes you feel relaxed and serene but never so meek that you allow others to harm you.”
Much like he felt now, Gavin noted. Bahn’s gentle presence calmed him and made him comfortable. “Right.”
“The khozhi is the balance. As chaos balances order, as strength balances weakness, as cold balances hot, so does the kho balance the zhi. I represent the zhi, and Bahnna represents the kho.”
“Awright, but what’s kho and what’s zhi?”
“Kho encompasses dark, hard, chaos, hot and aggressive. Zhi is light, soft, order, cold, and passive. Do you see? Together, they balance each other. Kho is focused, zhi is diffuse. Kho is fast, zhi is slow.”
“I think I understand,” Gavin said. “Kho is bad, zhi is good.”
“The khozhi has no bad or good. Those words are judgments made by beings of intellect based on their morality or personal preference. The khozhi doesn’t represent judgments.”
“What about emotions like happiness or anger?”
“Emotions are also balanced within the Is. Zhi is happy, kho is angry. Zhi is shame, kho is pride. Zhi is fear, kho is courage.”
“Zhi is love?” Gavin asked. “And kho is hate?”
“That’s right, Emtor. Zhi emotions are more yielding or open. Kho emotions are more rigid or closed.” Bahn paused when they came to a point narrow enough to cross the creek. He went first and hopped across easily.
The jump was too far for Gavin’s shorter legs, and his leading foot landed in shallow water. “Damn.” He stepped quickly to the other side to keep the water from seeping through the sole of his boot.
“Kho is dry, zhi is wet,” Bahn said with a grin as he resumed his pace. “Bahnna’s kho-ness is necessary to balance my zhi-ness. I don’t understand her thought process any more than she understands mine, but as complements we accept and embrace each other because together we create harmony.”
“Sorry, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“The khozhi is within you, Emtor. You balance yourself. You live within a society because of your realm’s tendency toward order. The realms with more orderly societies than yours have less chaos. The realms with more chaos have less complex social structures.”
Gavin thought about the thousands of people he’d met during his travels as a warrant knight. Some had been predatory, dominated by the foul darkness within them. Others were victimized — usually good, kindly people who were weaker or more willing to yield than their attacker.
Judging by their hazes, most people were somewhere in the middle, acting within the accepted boundaries of society despite the temptation to unleash whatever violence or perverseness they kept hidden within. He supposed that in the end, it all balanced out enough to keep society poised. “If your complement represents chaos, how do you keep her from destroying your society?”
“My thoughts temper hers, as hers temper mine,” Bahn explained. “Together we create balance.”
“What if one o’you dies?” Gavin asked.
“Without each other, neither tempers the other. Should Bahnna fall, I would die a natural death soon after. The opposite is also true.”
“What about the beyonders, the dark ones? Do you know how their realm works?”
“Theirs is the realm most dominated by the kho. It is filled with chaos, aggression and so forth. Their realm is balanced in the Is by the realm of nearly pure zhi. In that realm is order, light, passivity.”
“Where is the Is?”
“The Is is a what, not a where. It is simply the existence of all life. We know not what else to call it, so we call it the Is. Here on our world, life exists in layers we call realms. The mountains and oceans are the same across the realms. The birds and fish and trees are not.”
“So the two realms balance each other in existence?”
He looked at Gavin with a sad expression. “Yes, Emtor, but for how long, we don’t know. When the dark ones invade other realms, they upset the balance. Without balance, chaos reigns. If chaos reigned in all the realms, the world would be destroyed. We don’t want to kill the dark ones, only close those rips that allow them to cross into other realms.”
Gavin realized with a sick feeling that until he sealed the rift, beings from other realms were in just as much danger as his own people were. This made it all the more imperative that he seal the rift at once.
“We’re almost there, Emtor,” Bahn said, stopping. “Before we continue, I must warn you about Bahnna. You won’t like her. She’ll do and say things that tempt you to let the kho dominate you. You can curb those desires by addressing me rather than her.”
Gavin had dealt with plenty of dark, wicked people in his lifetime. He could handle himself.
Chapter 30
Ahead, Gavin made out the dark form of a cave in the side of the rock. “Your people live in caves?”
“For all of our history, we lived in villages. When the dark ones started to come, our kho-bent could slay the occasional one that came too close to the village. Ten full moons ago, the dark ones started coming more often and in greater numbers. We split into small family groups to ensure entire villages are not slain at once. Bahnna and I have not yet begun our families, so we live together.”
Ten months ago would have been when Gavin had first started deciphering the runes. Yeh, he noted, that was when he’d first started noticing an increase in beyonder invasions in his realm as well.
“Our elders believe the increased number of dark ones means the champion would soon close the gap. And here you are.” Bahn smiled.
Gavin hoped they were right. “What are your people called?”
“We call ourselves the Elyle.”
An Elyle, similarly dressed in a loincloth and sandals, exited the cave and made its way toward them. Judging from its slightly smaller stature, Gavin surmised this one was female, but there was a hardness about her that would have made even the toughest Viragon Sister seem like a wilting flower in comparison. Her green eyes fixated on Gavin, and her tongue trilled a long note that he had no translation for, though it annoyed him fiercely. Something about her unsettled him, like the many beyonders he’d slain, though Aldras Gar didn’t whisper a warning in his head. The closer she came, the more he wanted to distance himself from her.
“Emtor, please allow me to introduce my complement, Bahnna.”
Gavin was hesitant to offer his hand, though he did so anyway to avoid insulting his polite host. The instant he touched her, he felt hot, like his blood was bubbling in his veins. Her presence— no, her very existence— angered him. He dropped her hand as quickly as he could. She had a pleasant face, but her presence, her proximity, inspired such intense misgiving that he wanted nothing more than to walk away before he did something he would regret. He gripped his will and forced a smile. “My pleasure,” he said, though the snarl in his voice made the words sound as insincere as they felt.
“Mine too, Uckod,” she said. Gazing at him with steamy, lustful eyes, she ran a hand over his chest.
Gavin jerked back, but she persisted. He grabbed her wrist and shoved her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Ohhh,” she cooed. “Your hostility arouses me, Uckod.” She darted out a hand to slap him, but his reflexes were quick enough to block it.
“What the hell?” He had a strong urge to slam his fist into her face. He wanted to push her against the rock wall — no, pick her up over his head and heave her against it, hear her bones crack as she hit and fell to the ground. His sudden rage shocked him. Never had he felt such unwarranted loathing. Never had he struck a female in anger, and now he wanted so badly to hit her, to hurt her, as though she were a child-killing beyonder. This was madness. What the hell was going on here?
Gavin clenched and unclenched his fists as he backed away, trying to rein in his hatred. He remembered Bahn’s warning not to address her directly. “Why does she anger me so much?”
“She represents the kho,” Bahn replied simply. “Her kho-ness kindles the kho within you. I help you connect to your zhi-ness, so you feel more balanced.”
Hearing Bahn’s pleasant whistles and clicks did calm him. In fact, it was Bahn’s entire being — his gentle and yielding nature — that made Bahnna’s vile, aggressive presence easier to bear. “Why did she want to see me?”
“You’ve come for what I can give you, Uckod,” Bahnna said.
Gavin felt anger rise to the surface again, and he renewed his effort to focus his attention on Bahn.
“My complement travels the knowledge path of Rarga,” Bahn said.
“What’s Rarga?” Gavin asked.
“Rarga was a who, not a what, Emtor. She crafted the Runes of Carthis for the last Wayfarer King and taught him the skill.”
“Can your complement make the summoning rune I need?” Gavin asked, glancing at Bahnna. He instantly wished he hadn’t, as his anger returned. Fighting it was giving him a headache.
“That knowledge was forbidden long before we were born. She can craft a Rune of the Past that will enable you to visit the previous Wayfarer to discover where he left the Rune of Summoning Rarga made. Perhaps you can find it and use it.”
“He died two centuries ago,” Gavin argued, growing more frustrated.
“Yes, exactly. Use the Rune of the Past to travel to the time in which he lived.”
Gavin jerked in surprise. “You’re jesting.”
“Or perhaps you can travel to the midrealm’s past and receive instruction from Rarga herself to craft the rune you need.” The two Elyles stood silently for a moment, looking at each other. Bahnna grew more tense, while Bahn became calmer, if that was possible. Bahnna’s ears shifted forward, then lay flat on her head as her eyes went from purple to red. Bahn’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes became a serene green color. After a moment, they turned to Gavin.
“She has agreed to craft the rune for you.”
“My price is a single mating, Uckod. I’m fertile now. A child of our union would be most interesting, wouldn’t it?” Bahnna smiled wickedly and walked into the forest.
“What?” Gavin’s hands balled into fists on their own. “No, no and hell no,” he shouted at Bahnna’s back.
“She wanted more, but I convinced her that you’re going to save our realm and she should be more reasonable.” Bahn’s expression looked hopeful, as though he believed he’d negotiated a good bargain for Gavin.
“You don’t truly think I’m going to...” He pointed in the direction Bahnna had gone. “...lay with that. I’m despe
rate for the rune, but I ain’t perverted.”
“I’m so very sorry, Emtor. It was the best I could do.” Bahn’s whistles and clicks came so rapidly, Gavin had to concentrate to understand the words as they were translated in his thoughts. “Our people think she’s quite beautiful. Many of our males—”
“Well, I ain’t one o’your people. I ain’t doing it.”
“Then you should leave now,” Bahn said.
Gavin gaped at Bahn. Was he saying he wouldn’t help Gavin get the rune from someone else?
“When she comes back, she’ll sing to you. Her song is enchanting. You’ll be unable to resist her.”
“Don’t worry about me. I got a strong will.” After all, he hadn’t choked Bahnna yet. “Is there someone else who can craft it?”
Bahn sat on a rock and began to shuck the seeds he’d gathered earlier. “I’m sure many Elyles throughout the land have traveled the same knowledge path.”
“Do you know any?”
“I’m sorry to say I do not, Emtor. It’s a craft studied by those who are kho-bent. As one of the zhi-bent, I’m unacquainted with many of the kho-bent, even within our own clan.”
Gavin paced anxiously while he waited for Bahnna to return. What was he going to do? There was no possibility he would lay with that thing, but without the rune, he didn’t know how he could defeat Ritol. He set a pine cone on a tree stump and practiced throwing his dagger at it. After a few practice throws, he hit it square in the center, embedding the tip into the cone and knocking it off the stump. Between Brodas Ravenkind’s tireless pursuit of the throne, and the constant invasion by beyonders, a lot more people would die in the days to come. It was up to Gavin to do what had to be done. No one else could. At one time, he thought there was nothing he wouldn’t do to save his people. Now, he would be forced to put that conviction to the test.
